Death of bullied B.C. girl who told her story via YouTube sets off police probe

Amanda Todd

VANCOUVER — A video glimpse into the life of a now-dead teenage girl who said she was being relentlessly bullied has prompted a police investigation, expressions of concern and a renewed call to end such cruelty.

RCMP said Friday that serious-crime teams are working together, conducting interviews and reviewing contributing factors to the death of 15-year-old Amanda Todd.

An official with the B.C. coroner’s office confirmed preliminary indications suggest Todd took her own life earlier this week, just a month after posting a haunting video on YouTube describing both cyber and physical bullying.

During her nine-minute video, Todd explained via handwritten notes that while in Grade 7, she was lured by an unidentified male to expose her breasts via webcam. One year later, she said she received a message from a man on Facebook threatening that if she didn’t give him a show, he would send the webcam picture to her friends and family.

She said police later told her the man followed through with his threat, and she plunged into anxiety, major depression and drugs and alcohol.

“My boobs were his profile picture,” she said of the cyberbully’s Facebook page.

She said she tried to kill herself twice.

The video ends with her note: “I have nobody. I need someone.”

RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen said there was significant concern within schools, the community and the public over the role bullying could have played in the incident, but it’s too soon for police to comment on the issue.

“B.C. RCMP has publicly stated in the past that bullying ranks second, behind substance abuse, for youth issues identified as concerns by our detachments,” Thiessen said in a news release.

Merlyn Horton, executive director of the Safe Online Outreach Society and a former youth-outreach worker, said the education system needs to teach children as young as six about the powers and pitfalls of the internet.

While adolescents have always experimented with sexuality and exhibitionism, today’s youths are using communication tools that can have consequences significantly different from those experienced by any other generation, she said.

In fact, Horton said some studies suggest 20 per cent of teens who were surveyed have taken nude or semi-nude images of themselves and posted them online.

Adults must teach children and teens that everything posted online is public and permanent, they shouldn’t talk to strangers about sex, allow people to take sexual images of them or tolerate harassment, she said.

Horton said the highest-risk age group is children 10 to 14, the same age bracket Todd was in when the webcam images were taken.

“They’re sexting. They’re very naïve. They don’t have, you know, the risk assessment skills or the ability to really realize what consequences are, or they’re open to flattery,” said Horton. “There’s all sorts of ways for children that age to be manipulated.”

Horton said police and politicians are taking the issue seriously, but the problem can’t be legislated away.

“This is a culture and an online community, and what it’s going to take is values-based conversations with adults with their kids about online conduct,” she said.

“We have to learn how to deal with this environment.”

Simon Fraser University criminologist Brenda Morrison, who studies bullying, said the issue needs to be reframed from to a problem that needs to be solved by the community.

“I think no one stood up for Amanda when she was being bullied,” said Morrison. “So what does it mean to step up and offer Amanda care when she’s feeling down and she’s being bullied in public? Where was her community of care on the internet?”

Morrison said anyone is vulnerable to bullying

“But once we’re in a downward spiral our negative self-talk can be so detrimental to us. And especially around issues around sexually, it cuts us at our core. Other kids pick up on that, we get labelled, the label becomes self-perpetuating and can end in tragedy, as we all know now.”

The B.C. government on Friday reminded children and families help is available if they are feeling alone and have suicidal thoughts. The government outlined half a dozen phone numbers, including a 1-800-SUICIDE helpline, where people can call to get help.